Initialise not ready disk

[jollyjohn]

G'day

I cannot initialize this HDD. I've tried different partition software programs. The message: The Device is not Ready.

Any help is welcome and appreciated. (Windows 7)

Thanks

John

[johns0]

Have you tried windows disk management?

[bevills1]

Have you tried deleting the partition and recreating it? What size is the disk? The Note in your attachment says GPT is recommended for disks larger than 2TB, and you may want to try GPT if it's larger than that. I've had problems initializing disks in the past, and deleting the partition and then creating it anew has resolved the problem for 1TB and smaller drives.

[newpball]

First and foremost question is: is there any important data on the disk.

That, and only that, should determine your strategy.

Before you have answered that the best answer is to do absolutely nothing.

[Cornucopia]

I would think if they're already at the stage where they are attempting to initialize a disk, they've already decided NO to that question.

+1 on bevills1's suggestions.

Scott

[newpball]

I would think if they're already at the stage where they are attempting to initialize a disk, they've already decided NO to that question.

+1 on bevills1's suggestions.

Scott

There are certainly cases where a disk with data moved from one computer or from en external drive to another computer or external shows this problem. In those cases initializing the disk may not be wise.

[joeandmarg0]

Go to sevenforums.com,there is a section for this type of problem.

[Cornucopia]

I would think if they're already at the stage where they are attempting to initialize a disk, they've already decided NO to that question.

+1 on bevills1's suggestions.

Scott

There are certainly cases where a disk with data moved from one computer or from en external drive to another computer or external shows this problem. In those cases initializing the disk may not be wise.

That would be true, but there is certainly no indication that this is one of those cases.

Scott

[fritzi93]

I just had that problem a few days ago when I busted out a 4 TB external and installed it internally to a SATA/PATA card. This was in Windows Disk Management.

I booted up with the "new" drive (with lots of data on already) and Windows asked to initialize the disk. Aw shit, I'll have to re-copy the data. Okay. Then I was stuck. Reboot. had to delete the partition first and tried to re-initialize. Mind you, I couldn't get any further, so again I had to reboot and start over. After each operation, I had to do a reboot. Delete partition, reboot, initialize as GPT, reboot, create new partition, etc.

I'm still puzzled as to why. Maybe because of all the drives in the computer? Six on the mobo SATA ports plus an eSATA, and two on the SATA/PATA card, plus a PATA DVD burner.

[newpball]

I'm still puzzled as to why. Maybe because of all the drives in the computer? Six on the mobo SATA ports plus an eSATA, and two on the SATA/PATA card, plus a PATA DVD burner.

External drives often have their own proprietary interface in between the disk and the USB connection that can cause those kind of issues. Any person would wonder as to why, well unfortunately the "dogs want to mark their territory " principle often also applies to technologists. I would especially avoid WD external drives and in general I would recommend only direct SATA connections.

[hello_hello]

If the drive is in a third party extrenal enclosure (the original poster put it in one) then I'd be willing to theorise the drive is larger than the maximum size the enclosure supports. ie a 4TB drive in an enclosure when 3TB still seems to be a typical limit.

If it's connected to a SATA2 port and it's a SATA3 drive you could try (assuming it can be done) putting a jumper on the drive to limit it to SATA2 speed. That shouldn't be an issue, but anything's possible.

The drive could be faulty.

External drives often have their own proprietary interface in between the disk and the USB connection that can cause those kind of issues. Any person would wonder as to why, well unfortunately the "dogs want to mark their territory " principle often also applies to technologists.

If I was to wonder why, I'd be wondering if it's to enable older OSs to see the whole drive when in theory they don't support large drives. Isn't the XP limit 2TB? Yet I've happily used it with a 3TB external WD drive and I can access the whole capacity. I'd be heading in that direction before considering a dog pissing on a fire hydrant conspiracy theory, but each to their own.

I would especially avoid WD external drives and in general I would recommend only direct SATA connections.

I've got no external WD USB drives myself, but my other half has three of them ranging from 1TB to 3TB and they've always worked correctly with any PC they've been connected to. Your post is wandering away from being relevant though as all "external" USB drives are both pre-initialised and pre-formatted.

80% of the time if I'm connecting an "external" drive it's actually an internal drive sitting in a USB drive dock, and that works very reliably. When it comes to dual drive docks, USB tends to be more reliable than SATA as not all SATA controllers support port multiplying, or don't support it particularly well. It's far more hit and miss than a dual drive USB dock. That works so reliably I can even connect a dual drive USB dock with 2 x 2TB drives inserted to my TV's USB input and it sees the full capacity of both drives. In my experience USB tends to be better at hot swapping than SATA, even when the SATA controller supports it. I've got a SATA lead hanging out the back of the PC and I'm regularly connecting and disconnecting drives that way, but once every so often a drive doesn't connect until I reboot. I don't think that's ever happened with a USB dock.

And look, I managed to say all that without needing to post a ridiculous picture to insult everyone's intelligence and make myself look like a prat.

[Bjs]

jollyjohn

What is the system mainboard ?

How is drive connected ... there's a ton of guessing going on here.

List all physical drives connected to system and all external usb devices.

Psu watts ?

Drive with current issue ... brand, model and bios number (printed on circuit)

[lingyi]

@fritz93

Your PSU may be underpowered either because of wattage or age. When I went past 6 internal HDs (currently running 9, including 1 SSD) on my 480 watt PSU, I would experience the same issues you're having. Switched to a 750 watt PSU and it's fine (*knock wood*). Note that the 480 watt PSU worked for a couple of years, but as it aged the errors started.

Another possibility is what newpball stated about proprietary interfaces on external drives. There are reports of some WD 4TB externals not working when pulled from the case.

[jollyjohn]

G’day and thank you all for the interest in my problem.

CPU Corsair 700W, RAM 8GB
The HDD an IDE interface and it is connected externally, It has an Acronis HDD image in it, not needed now. I wanted to save another image in there, but after checking the content and preparing to start imaging another drive the HD disappeared. I tried to enable it again but couldn’t. Even tried the CMD:
2TB drives and smaller:
1. Open the Start Menu, type diskpart, press Enter
2. Type list disk, press Enter
3. Type select disk X (where X is the number your drive shows up as),
press Enter
4. Type clean, press Enter
5. Type create partition primary, press Enter
6. Type format quick fs=ntfs, press Enter (It ends here with error)
7. Type assign, press Enter
8. Type exit, press Enter

I’m attaching files for you to see.

[hello_hello]

That's a whole different world of possibilities. Usually, for those IDE to USB adaptors to work correctly, the drives usually need to be jumpered as "master". "Slave generally won't work, and "cable select" would possibly be the same". If the jumper is set to "master" though, or the drive defaults to master without a jumper, it should work......

Also..... If there's rear USB ports try connecting the drive to one of them. They're usually attyached to the motherboard. I think maybe (I'm not really certain) a front USB port connected to an internal USB header can behave more like a USB hub.

[jollyjohn]

It worked before and it's the same if I use the rear USB ports.

[Nelson37]

Something is broken. It's either the drive or the adapter, or possibly some strangeness happening to the drive on a low-level, depending on what software was being used to "prepare to image" another drive.

Simplify and remove variables. Disconnect all internal drives except optical, connect drive internally (if interface available), boot from CD, delete and re-create partition, format. If no internal IDE, try to find an older PC, or continue USB connection but boot from an optical disk with internal drives dis-connected.

I very strongly distrust and dislike USB drive connections as they are a frequent source of both complete failure and un-readable drives. They are, IMO, for temporary use only, not frequent use or primary storage. Do they work most of the time, sure, but their failure rate is far higher with much more limited usage time than internal drives, in my experience. If used as a primiary backup in business there MUST be more than one copy.

[newpball]

I very strongly distrust and dislike USB drive connections as they are a frequent source of both complete failure and un-readable drives. They are, IMO, for temporary use only, not frequent use or primary storage.

I totally agree with that!

[johns0]

I disagree,never get any issues.

[fritzi93]

@fritz93

Your PSU may be underpowered either because of wattage or age. When I went past 6 internal HDs (currently running 9, including 1 SSD) on my 480 watt PSU, I would experience the same issues you're having. Switched to a 750 watt PSU and it's fine (*knock wood*). Note that the 480 watt PSU worked for a couple of years, but as it aged the errors started.

That sounds very likely, thanks. I recalculated for PSU requirements, adding 20% capacitor aging and the calculator said 505 watts (with 30% aging, it said 543 watts). The PSU (a good quality bronze) is 3 years old and rated for 550 watts. Never had the slightest problem with it but that's a little close.

So I just ordered a bronze Corsair (650 watts) from Newegg.

[hello_hello]

I disagree,never get any issues.

Same here. There's a sata drive sitting in a USB dock connected to the TV in the living room for the TV to decode the video it contains and it must run for an average of five hours per day. It never misses a beat.

I think in all the years I've been using drives in USB docks I've had one problem, and I think that was due to me unplugging the drive a little prematurely. When I reconnected it, most of the files/folders it contained were no longer to be found. Fortunately I had a backup, and even more fortunately it took Windows Chkdsk about 15 seconds to fix the file system and access to all the files was restored.

[hello_hello]

It worked before and it's the same if I use the rear USB ports.

Does the mother board have an IDE connector so you can bypass the USB conversion to see if that's the problem?

[lingyi]

@fritzi93

Good call on replacing your PSU. You're defintely on the edge with your current PSU. Another issue I was having before the switch was that one or more drives would disappear upon reboot, then reappear after several restarts. Delaying the start-up of some of the drives (in the BIOS) helped sometimes. But again, swapping the PSU fixed the issue.

@jollyjohn, et al.

I'm in the middle on external USB hard drive connectivity.

I've gone through 5-6 IDE / SATA to USB adapters like yours and they've all failed at some time. Usually the external power supply dies first (though it looks like you're using the power directly from your PSU which is good), then the connector. The IDE connection isn't designed for constant plugging and unplugging. If any one of the 40 connections fails (due to corrosion, broken pin, broken wire), the drive may fail completely or exhibit issues like you've described. Compare this to 7 pins for SATA, which still isn't mean to be constantly plugged and unplugged, but the probability of failure is far less.

That said, I've gone through several dozen USB external hard drives (in cases) and the only issues (*knock wood*) I've had is actual drive failure or a proprietary interface that won't allow swiching to a different drive.

Bottom line for me is USB is fine (I've been running a USB multi-drive case 24/7 with several drives for over a year), IF you get a quality case that doesn't require connecting / reconnecting to the drive interface directly.

[lingyi]

One other piece of advise. Before you format your drive, try Easus Partition Manager. It's free and will sometimes recognize a drive that Windows won't. My experience is that the Windows Drive Manager is very particular and peculiar at times.

[Cornucopia]

I disagree,never get any issues.

Same here. There's a sata drive sitting in a USB dock connected to the TV in the living room for the TV to decode the video it contains and it must run for an average of five hours per day. It never misses a beat.

I think in all the years I've been using drives in USB docks I've had one problem, and I think that was due to me unplugging the drive a little prematurely. When I reconnected it, most of the files/folders it contained were no longer to be found. Fortunately I had a backup, and even more fortunately it took Windows Chkdsk about 15 seconds to fix the file system and access to all the files was restored.

Had an issue just last month where my daughter's ASUS tablet mobo gave up the ghost and she hadn't backed up to discs or the cloud. Removed the internal SATA and put it into my roving/all-purpose external USB enclosure (which I've successfully used with scores of drives), and it wouldn't recognize the drive. Did a raw sector copy (took for-EVER!) just in case, and then had to put that on hold for 2 weeks. Came back to it and tried just making room for it internally in my Mediaserver (as another SATA drive) and BOOM!: files & folders worked perfectly fine.
USB can be like that, more than any other connection type I've tried (except maybe Firewire DV capture connections).

Scott

[lingyi]

Couple of other thoughts just came to mind.

Try connecting your drive to a cable with only one or two molex connectors (wide 4 pin). If there are two connectors, use the one closed to the PSU. IDE drives can be really picky about the power they receive.

Another possibility is an underpowered PSU. You're using a pre-built PC (which is fine), but manufacturers use the minimum required components. Like the problem I suspect fritzi93 is having, there's just not enough power to run your additional drive.

[jollyjohn]

Under power, I don't agree. The PSU is a 700 W. The IDE power cables had never been used before and the connectors are gold plated, so they are clean. The HDD has no OS only an image that I checked before preparing to delete and save another image from a laptop. I tried Easus Partition Manager as well. The partition cannot be deleted, formatted, initialised nor explored. The drive spins OK. and shows up as a not initialised drive.

Thanks buys, I think is time to git the good magnets from it and throw the rest.

[johns0]

What make is the psu?Saying it's 700w doesn't mean much if it's a crappy brand.

[Bjs]

If that image is how its currently connected your better off setting the ide drive to master or slave ... both work ... and physically connecting it to an internal ide cable. If that pc has an ide optical drive simply swap the drives over (master is end of ide cable, slave is middle connector) and try again to initialise drive.

This is the only method that works where issues occur when connecting drives any other way... it reduces interfaces which may not be fully compliant and or faulty.

Do this before tossing the drive.

[jollyjohn]

If that image is how its currently connected your better off setting the ide drive to master or slave ... both work ... and physically connecting it to an internal ide cable. If that pc has an ide optical drive simply swap the drives over (master is end of ide cable, slave is middle connector) and try again to initialise drive.

This is the only method that works where issues occur when connecting drives any other way... it reduces interfaces which may not be fully compliant and or faulty.

Do this before tossing the drive.

Thanks mate.

I'll try that and if it didn't work here I'll have a go on an older PC that's all IDE.